Horror for Hollywood: Film Hits a Nerve With Its Grim View of Hometown

By ROBERT REINHOLD,

Published: March 29, 1993

LOS ANGELES, March 28—
Over the years, Hollywood has offered many portraits of its home territory, from a paradise of turquoise pools to apocalyptic visions like "Blade Runner." More knowingly than most moviegoers, Angelenos could shrug off the distortions as just illusion.

But now a film has struck a nerve in Los Angeles. The city is in an uproar over the Warner Brothers hit "Falling Down," a tale of a laid-off military worker played by Michael Douglas, a middle-aged man who mentally snaps in a freeway jam, leaves his car and embarks on a violent journey through a hostile city, much of it graffiti-splattered and ethnically threatening.

Korean-Americans objected to being portrayed as gouging shopkeepers. Hispanic residents recoiled at Mexican-American youths as murderous thugs. Even unemployed military workers said the film could hurt their job hunts.

On another day, such a film might not have caused a ripple. But Southern California, once considered the bright future of America, is in the grip of its worst economic slump since the Depression and is collectively wondering if it has any future at all. Moreover, the film comes shortly before the anniversary of the rioting last spring and during the Federal trial of the four white police officers who beat Rodney G. King. Good Reviews in the East

"Falling Down" had generally good reviews in the East, but not here. The Los Angeles Times has published seven negative articles about it, including three on the front page of its entertainment section on March 15. Then came three commentaries last Monday including a spirited defense by Mr. Douglas's father, Kirk Douglas, who argued that critics had misinterpreted the movie as making a hero of the "prejudiced, middle-class nerd" portrayed by his son.

All seem to agree that the film is entertaining and riveting, but few agree on its social message. A Los Angeles Times columnist, Peter H. King, retraced Mr. Douglas's steps in the movie, walking from downtown to Venice Beach. He reported that despite some "moments," the trek was uneventful.

" 'Falling Down' is the Los Angeles of late-night news and boilerplate sociology," Mr. King complained. "A city of drive-bys and Hare Krishnas and 'Will Work for Food' signs, of absurd wealth and wretched poverty and little in between. In short, it is the new mythical L.A., which has supplanted the old mythical L.A. of endless summers."

"Last spring's riots created a wave of Hollywood interest in exploiting Los Angeles as a pressure cooker of horrors," he wrote. "From now on, anything goes. You want urban insanity as a backdrop? Set your screenplay here. Any portrait of the city, no matter how grotesque or overstated, can be justified by a simple wave of the producer's hand toward the temporary insanity of the riots."

Mr. Baker suggested that it was the likes of the film's character who had brought in these urban problems, by voting in 1978 for the tax-limiting Proposition 13, which resulted in "horrid" public services, crime and gangs.

The film's director, Joel Schumacher, argued that the negative local reaction meant the film was all too true. "Obviously, this movie struck a nerve," Mr. Schumacher, who moved from New York in 1971, said in an interview. "When you hit a nerve, people will scream."

Mr. Schumacher pointed out that the film was written and almost completely filmed before the riots, and he said it was not meant to exploit the black-Korean tensions.

"This is not a movie that decided to single out L.A.," he said. "It could easily have been about Chicago or New York or Miami. My experience is when people protest too much you've hit the nail on the head. The problems that led to the riots exist in most major cities. Those problems have not been addressed.

" 'Falling Down' waved a red flag and said, 'Hey, we've got serious problems here.' Denial of that is not going to help. I know there are armies of hard-working law-abiding people in L.A., but that's not all.

"The whole point of the movie is that it may seem like an option to act out. Everybody is buying guns, and acting out by ordinary people seems to be the order of the day. I wanted to make a film by a man acting out."

Mr. Schumacher added that the Douglas character is the film's villain.

That was not how many Angelenos took it. At recent screenings, many in the audiences applauded when the crazed character played by Mr. Douglas beat up a Korean merchant for charging too much and then vandalized his store; when he shot a Mexican-American gang member; when he terrorized a fast-food restaurant after clerks refused to serve him breakfast a minute or two after the cut-off time.

As audience reactions suggest, the film did tap a reservoir of anger here, and perhaps no group is more concerned about that than the 200,000 Korean-Americans, who were frequent targets in last year's riots.

Korean groups say that since February eight Korean-American merchants in Los Angeles County have been shot, five fatally. A white man swinging a belt and shouting anti-Asian epithets was arrested March 13 for vandalizing a liquor store in suburban Anaheim. As in the film, the man left the shop without stealing. A Desire for Balance

Speaking of the movie, Robert Park, program director for the Korean Coalition, said, "I could not believe they were showing this." The film also fed stereotypes, he said.

Members of the coalition met with studio executives and Mr. Schumacher, about two weeks ago, and those who attended said the meeting was cordial and fruitful.

Asian-Americans are not seeking censorship but want balance, said Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center here. "It showed only the negative side of life in L.A.," he went on.

At City Hall, Mayor Tom Bradley has not made an issue of the film. But Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani has called the movie "effective" and "entertaining" and said it "did express the frustration of living in any major city, not just L.A."

Mr. Fabiani also found a political lesson, saying the Douglas character was probably a Reaganite who voted to cut taxes and public services.

"But the Mayor's view," he went on, "is that complaining only creates more of an audience for it."

Photo: Michael Douglas, left, in a scene from the movie "Falling Down," which has stirred fury in Los Angeles. (Warner Brothers)